I originally created a version of this piece while I was visiting my Grandfather, John Hayden, while he was starting chemotherapy for colon cancer. That was 9 years ago, my son was only 1 year-old. Spending a week in Jeffersonville, Indiana just across the river from Louisville, Kentucky rooted me down into the idea of family in a very special way. Pop, my grandfather, ended up eventually dying from colon cancer.
Not long after his passing he visited me in a dream - I was having a booth at an art fair and surprised me by coming to visit, I was overjoyed to see him and the sight of him filled my Heart with love, he was so big and tall that he picked me up right off the ground and hugged me and kissed me. When I recollected the dream I thought for a moment that I must have been a small child with the way he greeted me, but when I considered the context and that I was there with my wife and child, I realized that I was positively an adult in my current body. I was also filled with a profound and deep knowing that I was not witnessing just a childhood memory of Pop, but this was very much a present experience.
As I considered more fully this dream, though, I began to recall memories as a child that were very reflective of this dream, in particular one very early memory at the beach. I have a completely isolated memory of running up to Pop on the beach so entirely full of Unconditional Love and him lifting me up in the air and hugging and kissing me. I loved him in that moment in a way that the whole Universe became focused on that one point for a moment. I was so young and innocent I knew nothing of the cerebral conditions placed on that Love I would come to discover later in life. If my soul had any idea of the complexities of a life, of the mistakes we make that lead to the withholding of Love through our judgments and those of others, my soul ignored these completely in this moment. I saw God reflected between the two of us in that moment, I greeted my grandfather as the Beloved and he saw me as the same. All we knew was that Truth, and we enshrined each other in that experience.
For my daughter’s 3rd birthday we got a special new bike seat and handlebars that can attach to our bikes. The best thing about this setup is that it could be attached to my son’s bike so she could ride along with him. The seat is placed between the rider and the handlebars so she rides right between your arms and body. The other day I watched from my bike as my son rode his bicycle with his sister between his arms, and the two looked over at me and smiled. For a moment I was aware how worthy this life is, and all the suffering I have experienced and witnessed fell from me and I experience the complex and infinite mystery of Love without condition.
I believe in Heaven. I believe in Heaven because I have witnessed it firsthand. I am a doubter, like Thomas, and I need those firsthand experiences to complete my Faith. The Universe is aware of this attribute in me and knowingly offers these opportunities to me. I know with complete certainty that part of Pop’s Being exists Eternally in that place we created together and remains there Eternally as well. He offered me this same Gift. We gave each other Heaven simply by fully and completely Loving one-another. I gave that Gift to my children the other day as well, and they to me. This is our task here in this life and in this world, to build Heaven, and to actively participate in It. Perhaps we experience this more completely as we pass through the veil of death, but certainly we can experience it here on Earth. I experience this most frequently through my family and through my personal and ancestral connection to this Earth. If you look at this piece you might see that, and perhaps it can help you to see and to know the Heaven that exists in you and those around you. I see it and I re-member my Grandfather as I did as a child, my Beloved Pop, enshrined in that Heaven where he belongs; and I see and I know that we can find each other there - forever.
